“It’s Got The Whole World… In Its Hand” (k034)

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Posted in K100.

“It’s Got The Whole World… In Its Hand” is a 20-page story from DESTROYER DUCK #1 [1982], co-created by Steve Gerber and Jack Kirby, inked by Alfredo Alcala (with Steve Leialoha), coloured by Gordon Kent and lettered by Tom Orzechowski. This was a comic done to raise money for Gerber’s legal issues with Marvel over the character Howard the Duck, something Kirby was obviously sympathetic to with his own issues with the company (which took several decades to resolve).

With that background,  it’s understandably  a bit of an angry comic.  But clearly anger works as a motivating force, since this is a really good story. The analogy is obvious enough, with Duke “Destroyer” Duck going on a mission of vengeance on behalf of “The Little Guy”, a talking duck who was exploited, cheated and ultimately killed by the monolithic GodCorp. Kirby’s got an interesting funny animal style that he only had a few chances to use in his career, and this is a nice mix of that and his traditional action art. That works well with the slightly off-kilter, cynical satire of Gerber, who’s rarely been better than he is here. Everything dealing with GodCorp and their president Ned Packer is great, from their world-grasping logo (below) to their motto “We Make Product” to Packer’s declaration that “It’s not enough to defeat an enemy. One must devour, digest and eliminate him.”

The inks also work better than you’d expect, given how dominant Alcala is over some other artists. He seems to preserve most of Kirby’s line based on the pencils I’ve seen for the book, while having a finish that sometimes reminds me of some of the 1950s S&K work.

https://www.comics.org/issue/36010/#212802

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